Introduction– Pandita Ramabai
Professor Meera Kosambi recounted Pandita Ramabai as an individual whom one can see as…
“the site for a series of overlapping encounters – primarily that between Hinduism and Christianity, rationalism and dogma, individuality and Church hierarchy. Surrounding this there was the larger confrontation between Indianness and Western culture, feminism and patriarchy in its multiple guises.”
In early 19th-century India, society was rigid, caste-ridden, and decadent. British conquest exposed weaknesses in social institutions, prompting reformers like Pandita Ramabai to advocate change. At a time when women were expected to remain unseen and unheard, Ramabai championed women’s education and public participation, travelling across India, and teaching Sanskrit and Marathi. She also studied in Britain and the United States, giving lectures in Japan and Australia.
In 1878, Calcutta University honored her with the titles “Pandita” and “Saraswati” for her Sanskrit scholarship, making her the first woman to receive these distinctions. She remained controversial for mastering Sanskrit, marrying outside her caste, defying widowhood norms, and later converting to Christianity. Ramabai dedicated her life to uplifting women socially and economically through initiatives like Arya Mahila Samaj, Seva Sadan, and Mukti Mission.
Early life of Pandita Ramabai
Pandita Ramabai was born into the high caste hindu family in 1858. Her father Anant shastri dongre was an orthodox Brahmin scholar. Anant Shastri Dongre was quite a liberal, who considered that every woman has the right to education. So, he took it upon himself to educate first his wife after marriage and then his daughter, Ramabai.
To this Pandita ramabai once wrote , “ I am a child of a man who had to suffer a great deal on account of advocating female education….I consider it my duty, to the very end of my life, to maintain this course, and to advocate the proper position of women in this land”.
Two important and progressive aspects of his thought: his insistence on giving his daughters an education and his decision not to arrange a child marriage for Ramabai, due to the sad failure of his older daughter Krishnabai’s child marriage”
Ramabai travelled widely with her family, reciting the Puranas in temples and fairs. A famine claimed her parents and sister, leaving only her brother Srinivas. Together, they continued their father’s legacy, travelling across India to recite religious texts. In Calcutta, she joined the Brahmo Samaj, astonishing many with her command of Sanskrit. After her brother’s death, she married a lower-caste Hindu, Babu Bipin Bihari Das Medhavi, through civil rites.
After 19 months of marriage and the birth of a daughter, her husband died of cholera, leaving her widowed at 24. Undeterred, she moved to Poona and wrote Stri Dharma Niti (1882), exploring women’s roles within patriarchal society. Later, in America, she authored The High-Caste Hindu Woman (1887), exposing the suffering of Indian women.
The Contributions of Pandita Ramabai
Pandita Ramabai lived by the motto of self-reliance for women’. We must consider her distinctiveness in terms of what she did and the efforts she made on behalf of women. Following are the contributions of Pandita Rambai:
Arya Mahila Samaj
In 1882, Pandita Ramabai founded Arya Mahila Samaj at Poona, the very first organisation devoted to the emancipation of women. The objective of this institution was to promote the education women and their deliverance from the oppression of child marriage.
Stri Dharma Niti
She wrote a book called ‘Stri Dharma Niti’ in 1882 which was a guide of morality for women, asking illiterate and ignorant women to recast themselves through self-reliance and self-education. Through this book, she advises Indian women on how to prepare for marriage by choice, be a companion to her husband who is worthy of trust, achieve ideal motherhood by nurturing sons who would free India and attain spiritual welfare.
Cry of Indian Women
Her next academic venture ‘Cry of Indian Women’ more explicitly reflected her feminist thinking and her desire to seek gender justice. Her proximity with early feminists like- Tarabai Shinde, Anandibai Joshi and Rakhmabai Raut is clearly conspicuous in Ramabai’s book.
The reason for Ramabai’s feminist consciousness was her exposure to the more progressive and less unequal or asymmetrical gender relations in America and England. She thought that imparting education would be the best remedy for problems. She was aware of the mindset of Indian society which was sceptical of educating women. Missionaries often ran the few schools that were available. People said that a high-caste Hindu woman would rather face death than attend such schools, fearing the loss of her caste.
Hunter Commission
In 1882, she addressed the Hunter Commission, advocating women’s education and emphasizing the urgent need for lady teachers and lady doctors in society.
She felt the need for medical education and decided to leave for England in 1883. There she converted to Christianity along with her daughter.
The High Caste Hindu Woman
Collection of funds for the widows’ home was the main objective of Ramabai’s venture to the Western world. She visited America, made extensive tours and delivered lectures in hundreds of meetings for the cause. Her renowned publication ‘The High Caste Hindu Woman’ published in 1888 won the hearts of the people of America. The American Ramabai Association formed to raise funds for the proposed widows’ home in India. In 1889, Pandita Ramabai founded Sharda Sadan in Bombay (now Mumbai) with little opposition from conservatives, and she also received support from liberal nationalists.
Mukti Mission
The famine of Kathiawar (late 1890s) vividly exposed the vulnerability of the women’s life in front of her. She volunteered for the rehabilitation of the distressed women and chalked out a project for their vocational training. Most of them belonged to the downtrodden milieu and imparting vocational training was necessary for their livelihood. She inaugurated Mukti Mission at Kedgaon (Pune) and despite opposition from the conservative section tried to ensure self-sufficiency for around 1900 women.
In 1889, Ramabai took part in the First meeting of the National Congress held in Bombay to draw the attention of the British government to the existing grievances. There she spoke about two resolutions; one is related to the marriage and the other was related to the shaving of the widow’s head. She also highlighted the injustice meted out by widows by depriving them of property rights if they remarry. Both resolutions passed with a large majority. The members of the conference also supported her request to pledge not to allow marriage until the girl turned fourteen.
Thus, Pandita Ramabai paved the way for women’s emancipation and led to the hope of their eventual equality. Her project of empowerment of women irrespective of class and caste remains a memorable aspect of her contribution. DK Karve rightly said “She was one of the greatest daughters of mother India”.
Detachment from “Hinduism” and proximity with “Christianity”
Ramabai’s spiritual journey was long and questioning. After her parents’ death, she and her brother Srinivas continued traditional Brahmanical duties but gradually lost faith. In Bengal, the Brahmo Samaj introduced her to social reform and women’s education.
Under Keshub Chandra Sen’s guidance, she studied the Vedas, Upanishads, and Vedanta—texts previously forbidden to women—and grew dissatisfied with her religion. Teaching Purdah women about their duties further exposed her to the rigid restrictions and oppression faced by women and lower castes, shaping her awareness of social injustice.
In A Testimony she writes
“While reading the Dharma Shastras I came to know many things which I never knew before…..women of high and low caste, as a class, were bad, very bad, worse than demons, and that they could not get Moksha as men [could]. The only hope of their getting this much-desired liberation from Karma and its results, that is, countless millions of births and deaths and untold suffering, was the worship of their husbands. The husband is said to be the woman’s god; there is no other god for her. This god may be the worst sinner and a great criminal; still HE IS HER GOD, and she must worship him. […]”
The sudden death of her brother Shrinivas on 15 May 1880 deepened Ramabai’s disillusionment with Brahmanic Hinduism. In Stri Dharma Niti and The High-Caste Hindu Woman, she criticized her parents’ religion, rejecting its lofty philosophies and hollow promises.
Her dissatisfaction led her to Christianity. She wrote, “I was desperately in need of some religion. The Hindu religion held out no hope for me. The Brahmo religion was not a very definite one… It could not and did not satisfy me.” In England, she embraced Christianity, drawn to its messages of love, forgiveness, equality, and universal salvation—contrasting with Hinduism’s subordination of women and lower castes. A visit to a London Rescue Home for “fallen” women, rehabilitating them into society, reinforced her belief in Christianity’s practical and moral superiority, guiding her conversion.
Ramabai’s views on Women’s Issues:
Pandita Ramabai was a pioneering reformer who championed women’s education, widow welfare, and social equality in India. Defying rigid traditions, she founded Sharada Sadan in Maharashtra to provide shelter, education, and vocational training for women, promoting economic independence.
Her conversion to Christianity often overshadowed her reform work, though her efforts aligned with wider 19th-century changes — such as British laws abolishing sati (1829), legalizing widow remarriage (1856), and raising the marriage age (1891).Reformers saw education for women as a safer measure, unlike widow remarriage, which faced strong religious opposition.
During the 1896 famine, Ramabai rescued widows, orphans, and destitute women, establishing the Mukti Mission — a refuge that grew to house over 1,500 residents by 1900. The Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission continues today, providing education, shelter, and training for women in need.
Position of “The High Caste Hindu Women” in the 19th century
Since the beginning of her career, she actively worked to improve the status of Indian women, focusing especially on young widows neglected by Hindu society, and fought against the continuous violence and abuse they endured. Pandita Ramabai described the miseries of the hindu women in her book “The High Caste Hindu Women” in which she, like Manu, divided the life of women in three stages –
- Childhood
- Married life
- And widowhood/ old age .
Chapter II of “The High Caste Hindu Women”
In Chapter II of The High-Caste Hindu Woman, Pandita Ramabai vividly describes the plight of girl children in 19th-century India. People viewed the birth of a daughter as a misfortune — mothers felt deep distress, and neighbors expressed disgust. Girls were denied access to education, especially to sacred texts and ceremonies reserved for men. Yet, Ramabai notes that childhood remained the happiest phase in a woman’s life, as restrictions tightened with age.
No one allowed them to study or learn any text associated with sacred rites or ceremonies, as these were strictly forbidden to women. But they were at least free to move in their childhood. Ramabai states the phase of childhood as the most happy state for women. (High Caste Hindu Woman, Philadelphia, 8).
She also highlights disturbing realities from official records. The 1870 Census revealed that wolves took 300 girl children in Amritsar in a single year — reflecting society’s neglect of female infants. British officer Mr. Hobart’s 1868 report confirmed that despite prohibitory laws, female infanticide continued secretly and widely. According to the 1880–81 Census, India had over five million fewer women than men — a result of infanticide, poor medical care, and neglect of women’s health.
Chapter III of “The high caste hindu women”
In Chapter III of “The high caste hindu women” Ramabai talks about the Married Life, IT is not easy to determine when the childhood of a Hindu girl ends and the married life begins. Ramabai cites Manu in saying that the marriageable age of a Hindu girl is between eight and 12 years.
She writes that after marriage, the husband and his kin claim her as their property: “The husband’s clan now owns the girl; they call her by his family name, and in some parts of India his relatives refuse to let her use the first name given by her parents; henceforth, they treat her as a kind of impersonal being.” She can have no merit or quality of her own.” And after marriage she has to treat her husband as a god even if he is the biggest sinner of his time. Serving one’s husband is equal to serving God.” They performed household chores and did not go against their husbands’ wishes.
Chapter V Of “The high caste hindu women
In Chapter V Of “The high caste hindu women” Ramabai talks about : Widowhood. A time of punishment for the sins committed by a woman in her former life. The society treats a widow as inauspicious—shaving her head, forbidding ornaments or bright clothes, limiting her to one meal a day, and confining her to the house.
Ramabai writes: “A widow who is a mother of sons is not usually seen as pitiable; though regarded as a sinner, she faces less social abuse because she has borne superior beings. A widow-mother of daughters is treated with indifference or even genuine hatred.
Ramabai explained that niyoga allowed a widow to bear a child with her deceased husband’s brother, as dying without male offspring was seen as a man’s greatest tragedy. Widows were considered inauspicious, unlike male widowers who could remarry freely.
Through her writings, pamphlets, and lectures, she condemned such patriarchal oppression and advocated reforms to grant women greater freedom and dignity.
Gender Equality and Upliftment of women/ Women Emancipation and Equality:
Early reforms for women focused more on freeing them from social evils like enforced widowhood and child marriage than on promoting independence or equality.
Pandita Ramabai emerged as India’s pioneer feminist, founding the Arya Mahila Samaj in 1882 to unite women for social reform. Through institutions like Sharada Sadan, she encouraged women’s education, public speaking, and participation in social life — ideas far ahead of her time.
She also supported women’s political involvement, advocating their inclusion in the Indian National Congress (1889). Widows were considered inauspicious, but Ramabai believed that men and women were meant to complement each other, and that true love and equality in marriage required mutual respect and the freedom to choose one’s partner.
Civil Rights and Gender Justice:
It will not be wrong to say that Ramabai entered the feminist discourse through her book Stri Dharma Niti.This book turned out to be a guide of morality for women, asking illiterate, ignorant women to recast themselves in a more cultural mould through self-reliance and through self-education. Through this book, Ramabai advises the women of India on how to prepare for marriage by choice, be a companion to her husband who is worthy of trust, achieve ideal motherhood by nurturing sons who would free India and attain spiritual welfare.Here, we need to understand that critics began questioning Ramabai’s feminist consciousness through this book. People could easily debate her endorsement of the Sita–Savitri model of femininity within India’s gender discourse. However, by advocating late marriages for women and marriages by choice, Ramabai turns out to be a radical nevertheless.
Cry of Indian Women
Her next academic venture Cry of Indian Women more explicitly reflected her feminist thinking and her desire to seek gender justice. The change in the approach between Stri Dharma Niti and the Cry of India Women in June 1883 was a result of many factors. Her close proximity with early feminists like Tarabai Shinde, Anandibai Joshee and Rakhmabai is clearly visible in Ramabai’s new book. Another influence that brought an impact on Ramabai’s feminist consciousness was her exposure to the more progressive and less asymmetrical gender relations in America and England. Imparting education to women was thought to be the best remedy of the problems.
Pandita’s hope was that women’s education would lead to the rejection of Brahminism and realise the deception of sacred literature. But Ramabai was aware of the mindset of the Indian society which was sceptical of educating women. The few schools that were available as options were often run by missionaries and, as a rule, a high-caste Hindu woman would prefer death than go to such schools where there was fear of losing their caste. In her testimony before the Education Commission set upon 1882, Ramabai demanded women teachers for girls and schools. She noted that ‘women being one half of the people of this country are oppressed and cruelly treated by the other half’. She also asked for training women as medical doctors to save women who could not consult male physicians.
Education for Women
A person who has no money cannot be happy . What is more , it is difficult for a person to survive even for a single day without money . That is very learned men have termed money ‘ the outer soul ‘ . A man without money is like the living dead .
Ramabai saw a clear causal connection between the condition of the women and the state of the nation.“Those who have done their best to keep women completely dependent and ignorant vehemently deny any connection between their actions and the present degradation of the Hindu nation. India provides the most satisfactory proof of the doctrine of prenatal influence.”
Education
We can fairly realize the lack of education among Indian women by examining the 1883 Report of the Educational Commission and the 1880–81 Census returns. Of the 99,700,000 women and girls under British rule, 99.5 million cannot read or write. The remaining 200,000 who can read and write cannot all be considered educated, as girls generally attend school only between the ages of seven and nine. In that short time, they usually learn little more than to read the second or third vernacular reading book and acquire basic arithmetic knowledge, typically limited to simple rules.
Self Reliance
The lawgiver forces men to keep women completely dependent from birth to the end of their lives, making it impossible for them to achieve self-reliance. Women of the working classes fare better than their high-caste sisters in India because they often must rely on themselves, which gives them opportunities to cultivate self-reliance that they largely benefit from. In contrast, high-caste women, unless their families truly lack the means to support them, remain confined within the four walls of their homes.
Native women teachers
American and English women , as Zenana missionaries , are doing all they can to elevate and enlighten India’s daughters . All should respect and praise these good people and give heartfelt thanks for the work they perform. However, the disabilities of an unfriendly climate and an unknown language make it exceedingly difficult for them to begin their work immediately after arriving in India. Then one may ask, “What are these among so many?” They become literally lost among the nearly one hundred million women under British rule, not to mention the several million more under Hindu and Mohammedan rule.
Widow Remarriage and Critique of Child Marriage:
Scattered through her writings are found Ramabai’s description of the low status of women in both the philosophy and the practice of Hinduism , and her insistence on the need for women’s education as a means of reinstating them to their proper position .
The custom of child marriage puts an early stop to childhood , “It is not easy to determine when the childhood of a Hindu girl ends and the married life begins “. The issue of child marriage was also very sensitive , especially in the years immediately preceding the Age of Consent Bill of 1890.
Widowhood virtually ends a woman’s livable life , being “the worst and the most dreaded period of a high- caste woman’s life”. “ Throughout India widowhood is regarded as the punishment for a horrible crime or crimes committed by the woman in her former existence upon earth”.
‘Lokahitavadi’ , writing in the mid – nineteenth century , passionately protested against the plight of widows and stressed the need for remarriage . He also advocated the postponement of marriage till maturity , allowing for free choice for both partners , an education for women to encourage them to flout unjust customs . The liberal Marathi periodicals also supported the idea of remarriage.
Social Movements
Sarada Mission
Pandita Ramabai travelled to the United States in 1886 to attend the graduation of her relative and India’s first female Indian doctor, Anandibai joshi. She stayed back for two years, translated books and delivered lectures across the U.S. and Canada. It was here that she wrote her best-Known “The High Caste Hindu Woman ” Which was a militant denunciation of Women’s oppression, in order to defray the cost of her return journey to India.
Meanwhile, the newly established Ramabai’s Association of Boston had collected sufficient funds to support a secular widows’s home in India for a period of 10 years. Then, Pandita Ramabai opened Sharada Sadan in Bombay in early 1889. The school naturally attracted publicity, as it was the first residential school in Maharashtra for high-caste Hindu widows and unmarried girls, offering both secular education and vocational training. She created a semi-public space where women could learn skills and gain economic self-reliance—an entirely new concept for the upper castes. In 1891, she shifted the Sadan to Pune to reduce expenses and make it more accessible to widows across Maharashtra.
Mukti Mission:
The midst of all this, bubonic plague epidemic of the late 1890s in Western India made Ramabai to shift her Sharada Sadan from Pune to Kedgaon. Over two thousand women took shelter in this newly constituted, Mukti Mission. It began consisting of not only Hindu widows but also famine victims, sexually assaulted women,blind and the old women all kept in separate sections. This section came to be known as the Kripa such as (Home of Mercy). In this Mukti Sadan, girls did every thing in it—from weaving, dairy farming, cooking, gardening, and farming to running a printing press12. The social and economic value of being independent was no doubt the most important of all values to be taught to the Indian women.
In Pune in 1879, she came into conflict with the British over their management of famine relief. Her letter to the Bombay Guardian criticizing the plague measures tells us that she had no good opinion of British rule, though she attacked it openly only in terms of her feminist concerns. Mukti Sadan, rejected both caste distinction and gender discrimination by training women in all the areas of subsistence and profitable production. No doubt, Mukti Mission was the feminist revolution that Ramabai had for long struggled to start. Though when compared to Karve’s ‘Hindu Widows Home’, Ramabai’s institution remained marginal to the mainstream society of India. Yet its value lied in showing tothe Indian society an alternative way to salvation and liberation of women in nee
Critique of Church and Colonialism
Ramabai’s encounter with Christianity was her first experience with an organized religion. She approached it with the same rational and questioning spirit that had led her to analyze and reject aspects of Hinduism and the Brahmo Samaj.
Unprepared for rigid church authority, she often clashed with the Anglican hierarchy, which struggled to accept her selective and intellectual approach to faith. Her doubts about Christian dogmas—such as the miraculous birth and divinity of Christ—reflected her independent thinking and refusal to submit blindly to religious authority.
Views of Ramabai on christianity
Sister Geraldine insisted that “as a Christian, she is Bound to accept the authority of those over Her in the Church” . Needless to say, Ramabai protested against what she perceived as high-handed treatment, and insisted on exercising her liberty of conscience: “I have a conscience, and mind and a judgement of my Own. I must myself think and do everything Which God has given me the power to do… I have just with great effort freed Myself from the yoke of the Indian priestly Tribe, so I am not at present willing to place Myself under another similar yoke by accepting everything which comes from the priests
As authorised command of the most high” and further “I am fully aware Of my ignorance in Christian theology but I cannot take everything which is thought by Church people to be an article of faith And, therefore, to be believed”. Ramabai was impressed by the gender-Egalitarian nature of the Christian doctrine, She was soon to discover the patriarchal element in the Church’s authoritarianism. The Bishops of Bombay and Lahore, then in England, were consulted and Reacted very negatively: “Above all things Pray believes that her influence will be ruined forever in India if she is known to have Taught young men.
Critique of Colonialism
The dilemmas inherent in the early social Reformers’ love-hate relationship with the British rulers could have been intensified in Ramabai’s case through her acceptance of Christianity while she was in England, but She seems to have maintained a consistent, Anti-colonial and nationalist stand But Ramabai’s anti-colonial stance was not situation-specific.
She was able to see and condemn the very basis of colonialism which was exploitative: “The British government is sucking Indian blood and wealth while perforce despatching Indian armies to march and fight the British battle in Egypt and ultimately die over there. This very government has swallowed our Indian States wherever they found no legitimate heir to the throne! Not to speak of other atrocities enforced by treatment of the Press Act; Act that reduced the age of Indian Civil servants; Act of Disarmament, and worst of all, our poor Indian citizens have to pay so many taxes to the government, whether we afford them or not. We may as well sell our houses and properties but we must pay the taxes levied by the Government.
Criticisms
There are certain criticisms that are levelled against Pandita ramabai which are as follows:
- After raising funds in America, Pandita Ramabai established Sharada Sadan in Poona but soon faced opposition from Indian reformists and the Christian community. Her policy of religious neutrality angered Indian Christians, and when some widows read the Bible and converted, critics accused her of turning it into a “widows’ mission house.”
- She also faced backlash for openly criticizing Hindu scriptures and social customs. Her writings and lectures exposed India’s regressive traditions to the Western world, which some saw as giving colonial powers a moral claim for their “civilizing mission.” Yet, her goal was reform, showing that widowhood and women’s oppression were part of a deeply flawed social system.
- Ramabai was criticized for her unconventional life: she mastered Sanskrit, studied Dharmashastras and Upanishads, travelled widely, married Bipin Nehari Das Medhavi, a lower-caste lawyer from Bengal at 22, refused to live as a widow after his death, and later travelled abroad, converting to Christianity with her daughter.
- She was also critiqued for focusing on high-caste women, as Sharada Sadan primarily admitted them. Ramabai argued that high-caste women were more oppressed and needed urgent reform.
Read about debates on secularism.
Conclusion
In conclusion it can be said that Pandita Ramabai was the first Indian woman who was a feminist, social reformer and educationist. A truly remarkable woman who pioneered women’s education and rebelliously championed for women’s rights and empowerment. Ramabai saw caste as a great flaw in Hindu society. It not only saw physical work and labour as denouncing, but it also led to false ideas of valuing intellect and merit. She also believed that caste associations promoted narrow self-interest and prevented the development of a democratic spirit in the real sense.
Ramabai’s work in the educational sector was commendable and greatly impressed her contemporaries, despite her connection to Christianity that irked many prominent personalities in western India. There have been many books and scholarly works on the life of Pandita Ramabai by writers and scholars from the east and the west both. Some of the prominent ones being the works of Meera Kosambi and Uma Chakravarti.
Bibliography
- Kosambi , Meera ; Women, Emancipation and Equality: Pandita Ramabai’s Contribution to Women’s Cause ; Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 23, (Oct. 29, 1988),
- Kosambi, Pandita Ramabai’s Feminist and Christian Conversions, p. 55.
- R. L. Bodley (1981) Introduction, in P. Ramabai’s The High-caste Hindu Woman, reprint, p. xiv (Bombay: Maharashtra State Board for Literature and Culture).
- A. B. Shah (Ed.) (1977) The Letters and Correspondence of Pandita Ramabai, p. 11 (Bombay: Maharashtra State Board for Literature and Culture).
- M. Kosambi (1992) An Indian response to Christianity, Church and colonialism: the case of Pandita Ramabai, Economic and Political Weekly, XXVII, pp. WS 61-71
